6. TMC Maintenance
Program: Multi-Year Plan

6.1. Introduction

Several aspects of the maintenance program are influenced by
the consideration of a multi-year plan. These include:

The purchasing, warranty, and preventive maintenance cycles.

The influence of lifetime and salvage values on the purchasing
and replacement plans.

The overlapping phases of:

Vision,

Concept of Operations,

Requirements,

Design,

Develop and Deploy, and

Acceptance Test Plans.

As defined in Chapter 1, responsive maintenance
is the repair or replacement of failed equipment and its restoration to
safe, normal operation. Preventive maintenance is the activity performed
at regularly scheduled intervals for the upkeep of equipment.

The objective of this chapter is to provide the user with
the implication of multi-year planning of maintenance. Although
budgets and plans usually have a time resolution of one year,
there are several aspects that cover time periods of several
years, including developing specifications for follow-on bidding,
salvage times, etc.

6.2. The Cycle of Procurement

The procurement of ITS hardware follows a cycle of purchasing warranty
and then preventive maintenance. The designed of a maintenance program
needs to consider these three phases of the procurement cycle in terms
of their influence on staffing, contractors, storage, and budget.

Purchasing hardware for ITS systems can be problematic due to the slowly
moving changes in state procurement rules compared with the rapid changes
in technology. For example, if a state over the next several years wishes
to purchase some piece of electronic technology, and the equipment needs
to be rebid each year on a competitive basis, there are often special
circumstances that may need to be accommodated. Theoretical scenarios
could include the following:

After an initial hardware acquisition, the next year of
competitive bids is won by another vendor with incompatible
hardware.

The version of the firmware in the hardware has changes
causing this year's equipment to be incompatible with
last year's.

The equipment is no longer manufactured or the company
has gone out of business.

The initial hardware has proven unsatisfactory; the Agency
selects an alternative vendor whose hardware is incompatible
with the previous vendor's equipment.

These types of problems nearly always occur during multi-year
procurements. Some of the issues can be mitigated by adoption
of standards. However, the specification of NTCIP as appropriate
can only address those devices for which standards have been
published. For the case where the standard specifies Management
Information Base (MIB) information, some of these are obligatory
and others can be vendor-specific. The writer of the specifications
needs to consider that if this hardware is to be procured in
separate phases over several years (often the case due to annual
budgets), then the form of the MIB needs to be generic enough
that the hardware from other vendors will allow compatibility.

For the ITS pieces that are not covered by NTCIP, the specifications
writer needs to define a protocol and standard that will ensure
compatibility in future years. For example, MPEG4 has been an
ISO standard for digital television and distribution of video
since 1999. There are vendors that sell their own proprietary
video distribution products. Not specifying globally recognized
standards would undoubtedly cause problems in similar procurements
in later years. There are other groups that can provide open
specifications for many TMS components — e.g., Internet
Protocol (IP), Extensible Markup Language (XML), and other data-transfer
specifications.

One technique successfully used by some states is to competitively
procure ITS devices and add them to the state procurement list.
Bidding items on statewide procurement allows compatibility
for the duration of the contract. However, in some cases, there
are time limits in the statewide procurement rules that limit
the practicality of this approach. When it can be used, the
approach is advantageous in that it allows for a much shorter
procurement cycle after the item is added to the statewide procurement
lists. For example, a typical order time for a message sign
is 90 days. This means that 90 days before the required delivery
date, the sign construction can be initiated with a purchase
order. Normal procurement often takes a year or more. Another
advantage to fast turnaround is that it avoids the problem of
the manufacturer's warranty running down while the equipment
sits in the maintenance yard awaiting installation.

Figure 6-1 Telecommunication Rack—Lights
Indicate
Status

Keeping firmware current can be a problem in terms of maintenance over
several years. Without some form of configuration control over firmware
versions, there can be long-term problems — e.g., various devices
that externally look the same may actually have different features as
a result of differing firmware. The preferred approach is to ensure that
the vendor will provide firmware updates as they are released for several
years after the component purchase. Generally this is not considered onerous
by the vendors and is not likely to be expensive. In some cases, it means
the replacement of one chip. However, with technological advances, particularly
in electronics, it is now often possible to acquire and install the updates
on-line.

6.3. Lifetimes and Salvage Values

In Table 4-1, Sample Life Expectancy
of TMS Components, the lifetimes of components is shown to vary between
4 and 20 years. Although technological changes happen quickly, the procurement
cycles for most Agencies do not. Many systems in the U.S. operate on 10-year
old computers that are incapable of running current word-processing programs.
In addition, there are hardware components in the field —e.g., electromechanical
controllers — that have been operational for many decades.

When developing a multi-year program, the various procurement
cycles have a significant impact on the budget. Therefore, Agencies
should consider developing a budget line item based on the replacement
costs of items when they are due to expire. Some Agencies have
found that it is not politically acceptable to scrap DMS's
as motorists are familiar with their messages. However, the
aging of these DMS's and the fact that many of the vendors
are no longer in business, sometimes makes it necessary to dismantle
the older signs as the only practical source of spare parts
when the capital budgets did not include the cost of new replacement
signs.

Information in this report and throughout the literature can
be used to reasonably estimate component lifetimes. However,
the preferred course of action is to use data from the maintenance
database developed locally to assist in making key replacement
decisions — for instance, which components are least reliable
and should be replaced earlier. In particular, the environment
has a significant impact on component lifetime (e.g., loops
are much less reliable in northern states than in other parts
of the country) and gathering data from jurisdictions with a
similar climate can assist in the planning process.

When to scrap and salvage the central software is an item that
needs particular attention with respect to multi-year maintenance.
ITS control systems, communication network management systems,
inventory control systems, and various equipment vendor software
are all subject to updates. Some updates add functionality and
others eliminate bugs in the programs. From a maintenance perspective,
the typical control system consists of four parts: (1) the control
system, (2) the database, (3) the operating system, and (4)
the hardware. All of these come in a variety of versions with
service packs and various updates. It is, therefore, critical
that the system as built and installed does not have any changes
applied without assurance from the control system vendor that
the entire environment has been configured and tested as a set.
Additionally, if hardware upgrades are required for maintenance
purposes, all the software components should remain unchanged.
Changing the hardware while simultaneously performing software
upgrades is possible, but it is more difficult to debug. If
one group, either at the Agency or contractor, is responsible
for the upgrades then that one group can fix problems. However,
independently buying hardware, getting a database upgrade, and
then expecting a control system to install and operate is not
a recommended approach. Long-term maintenance upgrades to system
require extensive planning, budgeting, and testing.

6.4. Performance Metrics and Monitoring

Maintenance activities and quality control procedures require that there
be metrics if the performance is to be monitored. These issues, discussed
in Chapter 5-8, have an influence
on multi-year planning. Monitoring performance provides indicators to
the Agency about whether the correct investments have been made. Metrics
also provide maintenance engineers with component-level information that
supports the decision-making concerning the need for additional responsive
measures and the purchasing of spares.

Although metrics should be part of an annual maintenance program,
long-term monitoring can provide significant data to assist
in planning future maintenance and determining whether investments
are worthwhile. Performance metrics can be used to develop future
years' purchasing and replacement strategies that can
help ensure fewer surprises when systems need replacement.

6.5. System Overlaps and Multi-Year Phasing

The multi-year maintenance plan has to accommodate the fact
that TMS's are not stationary systems. They are typically
expanded from a basic system implementation on the most congested
section of freeway approaching a metropolitan area. Once established,
there is a natural inclination to expand the basic system, particularly
when the initial experience has been successful. This expansion
is often both functional and geographical. As the system is
expanded, the input to maintenance planning is best applied
to all the phases of the project, including the various elements
shown in Figure 6-2.

There is virtually no ITS system where the expansion is not
in one of these phases, even when the vision is awaiting an
allocation of budget. From the maintenance planning perspective,
the input of the maintenance group to geographic or functional
expansions need to be considered.

During the vision phase, a system expansion — and sometimes
additional or distributed control systems — are contemplated.
The maintenance implication of these elements can be considerable
as they can involve relocation of staff and equipment. New technologies
in the design and the requirements phase can necessitate new
training for the maintenance staff. Geographical expansion requires
additional devices and potentially additional staff. During
development and deployment, the disruption to existing system
needs to be planned for and accommodated. Often the communications
system is interrupted during system expansions. The maintenance
planner needs to remain cognizant of these issues and ensure
that the requirements detailed in earlier sections of this report
are adequately considered and acted upon appropriately.